Poly — A Death Investigation Report

On 18 March 2018, a worker surnamed Pang fell to his death from the building where I lived. Two years later, I moved into that building. The place from which he fell is exactly what I see when I look out from my balcony. The complex was developed by Poly, a name that happened to share its sound with his.

While I lived there, I searched for information about the property and came across the investigation report of that accident. The report classified it as a non-production-safety-accident, attributing the direct cause to his personal circumstances, while the criminal investigation was never concluded. From the moment I read that report, I kept thinking about how to make something out of it. It was only after I moved away that I finally finished it.

The report itself contains seams: the same 2.48 million yuan is recorded both as humanitarian assistance and as direct economic loss; every part of the engineering system is described as compliant, yet responsibility falls on one person. The gaps between these statements are not conclusions, but questions.

This chapter is not a photograph. It is an interactive investigation.